


you can’t breathe and smile at the same time

by remaya



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Eventual Romance, M/M, Songfic, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, not quite crack but close
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21528928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remaya/pseuds/remaya
Summary: (Joking! Harry just wanted to make Tom smile.)Voldemort is stuck in a lousy time loop. He gives himself advice, slowly figures out his situation, and then Harry Potter just has to go and make it more complicated.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 47
Kudos: 175





	1. Start Again - 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer! Views on life and religion are not necessarily representative of the author’s. For violence triggers, please beware of the second chapter. I’ll label it in that A/N as well.
> 
> I literally heard the first song, said ‘oh Voldemort and time loop makes sense,’ and started typing. So this is born of no plot, no outline, just me and the seat of my pants ;-;
> 
> Chapter count is tentative! In the chapters: the lyrics are on the right. The meat is on the left. I don’t recommend listening to the songs while reading, but before a chapter is good. :D

1 [Start Again](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-2VKeDBPkw)

(by OneRepublic ft. Logic) 

  
  


_Snap_.

Can’t I just turn back the clock?

It’s King’s Cross materializing around him, unbearably white. 

Albus Dumbledore judges him with the weight of a year’s worth of patience. Voldemort ignores the old coot in favor of reaching under the bench. He extracts a grotesque, squalling infant, and settles it automatically in the firm hold that had been drilled into him at Wool’s. Interesting; he hadn’t known that he remembered this.

“Harry Potter defeated you,” Dumbledore finally bursts out. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“I am, presumably, dead,” says Voldemort, numb in the face of the admittance, the failure. He cannot look up from the shriveled face of his newly-discovered horcrux. “What is there to say?”

“It was the power of love,” says Dumbledore.

It was sheer, dumb luck, and Voldemort’s own distraction with the Potter boy.

Forgive my sins

He made mistakes.

I just wanna roll my sleeves up

He would not make them again. If only… 

And start again

The Horcrux-infant falls to the white tile, its support transported back to the mortal plane.

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. James Potter meets his end in the foyer. Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside; he snuffs out her pathetic obstinance and a Vow— _please, I don’t care about the others but let Lily live_ — breaks once more.

This time, he hesitates a fraction, something foreign stirring in him, a warning, when he turns his attention to the baby. But he is Lord Voldemort. He does not hesitate. 

He carries out his will without ever meeting Harry Potter’s eyes.

 _Snap_.

I know that I messed it up

Seventeen years of muddling about in the dark. Another death. Another _failure_. It’s King’s Cross station materializing around him, unbearably white. He remembers now.

It is worse this time because he made the exact same mistakes.

“Harry Potter defeated you,” begins Dumbledore.

The Horcrux-infant wails as piercingly as before. Voldemort conjures for it a crib, a blanket, and a pacifier. The horrid noise stops.

“It was the power of love,” Dumbledore tells him, and then the Horcrux-infant blinks. Voldemort is gone.

Time and time again

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. James Potter meets his end in the foyer. Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside; he snuffs out her pathetic obstinance and a Vow breaks once more.

He turns his attention to the baby, apprehensive. Harry Potter’s eyes are startlingly green.

It feels like deja vu, but Voldemort heeds not mortal insecurity. The prophecy is absolute, and Harry Potter must die.

_Snap._

I just wanna roll my sleeves up

Seventeen years. Failure. It’s King’s Cross… unbearably white. He remembers now.

“Stop,” he says before Dumbedore can speak. How tedious. The Horcrux-infant shuts up just as well with only a pacifier. 

Is there any way for him to keep his foreknowledge, instead of rehashing the same events over and over again?

And start again

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. James Potter meets his end in the foyer. Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside; he snuffs out her pathetic obstinance and a Vow breaks once more.

Abruptly he feels fatigued. The baby, thankfully, does not cry, merely watches him with wide, curious eyes.

 _Unlike another_ , he thinks, then halts. Where did that thought come from? It is entirely unwelcome; he has not paid enough attention to any other baby to remember whether or not it cries.

On a whim, he conjures a pacifier and sticks it in the baby’s mouth before killing it. 

_Snap._

I was switchin’ up the lanes

Seventeen years. King’s Cross. White. Failure. He remembers.

He drops to his knees and screams in frustration. It is suddenly sinking in. This must be some sort of curse: reliving his end, over and over and over, without a way to change. He needs a way to _change_.

“It was the power of love,” says Dumbledore behind him. In his voice are condescension, satisfaction, pity, the smug _knowing_ of having predicted Voldemort’s end.

“ _Shut the bloody fuck up!_ ” Voldemort shrieks, and the Horcrux-infant shrieks with him. Merlin, let that infernal noise _stop._ He plugs the thing’s mouth with a pacifier, the movement practiced.

Steppin’ out the frame I’m in

For the first time, he explores the train station, Dumbledore curiously dogging his footsteps.

It grows more detailed the more he looks. The white tile gives way to golden paving that runs along the side of the train tracks. The tracks are metal and there is no train. Mounted upon the wall on the opposite platform is an unreadable clock, ticking.

The bench is one of many. On another he finds a wisp of a snake: another horcrux. This one had been stored in Nagini. 

He deposits it next to the Horcrux-infant. Nagini-horcrux hisses sluggishly and curls itself around Horcrux-infant. They look peaceful together. Merlin, though, Horcrux-infant is ugly as fuck. It’s like a tiny, pale trash goblin.

Voldemort resists the tugging in his navel and walks further away. Discarded on the floor he sees a diadem. He picks it up. Ah, another. 

The tugging grows more insistent. The diadem falls just shy of the bench when he disappears.

I was pulling on the reins

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. James Potter meets his end in the foyer. Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside; he snuffs out her pathetic obstinance and a Vow breaks once more.

The source of his anxiety must be the baby. Harry Potter meets his baleful glare with childish ignorance.

 _Snap_.

Sick of all the same happenin’

The white tiles of King’s Cross roil and break with the force of his failure. He remembers, with incoherent rage, _seventeen useless years_.

If he has ever hated one thing it is incompetence. In himself, in others— if Fate has doomed him to this pointless, paltry existence, let it be on his own terms.

He has been staying at the station longer each time. How many iterations has it been? Five? Six? There must be a reason. There must be.

The differences between each iteration may reveal some truth. He contemplates this. When he interacts with more Horcruxes, he seems to recall more upon return to the mortal world. This time Horcrux-infant, Nagini-Horcrux, and Diadem-Horcrux have appeared on or near the bench, likely a product of his explorations from the last time.

So if he gathers them here, they will stay, Voldemort infers as he plucks the diadem from the floor and places it on the bench. That is good. A start, at least. Encouraging.

“He defeated you,” begins Dumbledore yet again, slightly breathless from having picked his way across the destruction of Voldemort’s arrival.

Voldemort pinches his nose. “Spare me your drivel about the power of love,” he scoffs, then abruptly stares, cross-eyed, at where his nose is. Where did his nose come from? Why had he pinched it automatically, as if he still had the muscle memory to do so, when he had been living without a nose for decades?

The tugging in his navel takes advantage of his distraction to whisk him away.

I swear I was looking for disaster

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. James Potter meets his end in the foyer. Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside; he snuffs out her pathetic obstinance and a Vow breaks once more.

It is with great trepidation that he recognizes Harry Potter. Upon an accidental brush of skin when securing a pacifier in Potter’s mouth, Voldemort remembers.

He remembers unbearable white. He’s been gathering his Horcruxes on the bench at King’s Cross. Dumbledore is just as infuriating in death as in life.

He had a nose, but as he does not have one now, that is a mystery to be solved later.

What to do, what to do. He cannot kill the Potter. He does not want seventeen more years of failure. But the prophecy. But the loop. He is in a time loop. 

Footsteps sound in the foyer, accompanied by a wavering “ _Jamie?_ ”. Voldemort is not proud to admit it, but he panics, grabs the baby, and apparates. In his haste and distraction the baby is splinched. 

It bleeds out before Voldemort can heal it, its eyes wide and filling with tears.

_Snap._

Mixed with a bottle of gin

King’s Cross is so white. Voldemort _loathes_ it.

He tunes out Dumbledore and checks on his Horcruxes. Horcrux-infant is chewing on the diadem. Nagini-horcrux hisses threateningly at him when he nears. Its wispy fangs pass through his wrist when he reaches out, a pacifier in hand for Horcrux-infant.

Failure. Failure, failure, failure. He’d been so close to _doing something_ about his fate, but as a wraith, the memories slipped from his nonexistent fingers no matter how desperately he clung to them. This time it was Neville Longbottom who ended his madness.

He wonders why Horcrux-infant still exists in this in-between even though he hadn’t made it this time around. Some sort of continuity niggles at his mind. He is too tired to understand.

The pacifier is shoved in Horcrux-infant’s mouth, replacing the diadem, which he places a safe distance away on the bench. The wailing continues, and he registers that it is not coming from in front of him but behind him.

“I do hope you’re listening,” says Dumbledore over the noise. “It’s important that you confront—“

Voldemort whirls around. His ears ring.

The noise stops. Harry Potter the Baby giggles through the bars of a crib. It pulls itself up onto its chubby legs, its diaper crinkling loudly with its exertion. It squeals and babbles. Its tiny fists clench and unclench towards Voldemort.

Voldemort strides forwards and lifts it by its armpits. It dangles limply in his hands and beams at him.

There is a scar under one little arm, where Voldemort had splinched it. He shifts the baby to one hand, uses the other to trace the raised line and then feels the brachial pulse fluttering in the crease of its elbow. The delicate nature of its life disturbs him.

Settling the Potter into the crook of his arm, he straightens. The Potter grasps weakly at the material of his robe, drooling spittle. Its eyes are huge and wet and green. 

Voldemort carries it with him as he follows the train tracks. It blubbers over his dress shirt, under his robe.

“What are you doing?” asks Dumbledore, bewildered. As if Voldemort would answer him. The day he seeks advice from Dumbledore is the day he ceases to—

Slytherin’s locket is what he finds next. It is the next horcrux in reverse chronological order. It is a pattern. 

Anticipating the tug in his navel, he returns to the bench. He does not know what to do with the Potter. The source of his failures, the key to his success.

He rolls the crib closer to the bench and sets the baby back into it so that when he is tugged away, it will not fall onto the hard, tiled ground. He waffles between putting the Locket-horcrux on the bench and giving it to Potter. He decides that the chain might choke the baby. He places it on the bench with the diadem and the snake and the Horcrux-infant.

The Horcrux-infant is grotesque in comparison to Potter’s purity. Voldemort feels vaguely resentful.

“Drink?” He offers a conjured bottle of alcohol to an astonished, bewildered Dumbledore. Dumbledore, suspicious, does not accept. Voldemort shrugs and takes a large swig for himself before he flickers out of view.

The glass bottle falls. It smashes on the floor. Amber liquid seeps slowly through the cracks in the white tiles.

And just because I came home after

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. 

James Potter meets him in the foyer. A wavering “ _Jamie?_ ” echoes through Voldemort. Voldemort shivers. Anticipation, it must be.

“Move,” he suggests, feeling… merciful.

But James Potter is stubborn and noble and desperate. So he meets his end in the foyer.

Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside; Voldemort, trusting his instinct, incapacitates her. He levitates her unconscious body to a corner of the nursery room. What pathetic obstinance.

As he draws near to the crib, Harry Potter starts babbling delightedly and reaches his tiny fists towards Voldemort. He slobbers all over the finger Voldemort offers. Voldemort recognizes this.

Yes, Voldemort remembers.

He hates doubting himself but he is nothing if not careful. He does not apparate. He takes the baby in his arms, destroys a wall, and floats out, dodging Sirius Black’s frantic spells.

Three days later, Lily Evans-Potter confronts him in a blazing fire of grief. He is careless from the euphoria of remembrance. He loses.

_Snap._

He haunts Albania and knows no more for seventeen years.

(The Boy-Who-Lived grows up with an unparalleled fondness for flying.)

Doesn’t mean you’ll take me in

Unbearable white materializes around him, repaired, pristine. It _burns_ , but Voldemort had half-expected it so he merely turns his attention to his horcruxes. The wispy snake is telling a riveting tale of hunting juicy mice to the Locket. Horcrux-infant is silent.

Horcrux-infant is avidly watching Harry Potter chew on the diadem.

Harry Potter is in the conjured crib, which has been shifted so that its side touches the armrest of the bench. He has not changed at all from Voldemort’s last visit to King’s Cross. He is so engrossed in his task that it takes him a few minutes to notice Voldemort’s arrival and start babbling.

_Where is Dumbledore?_

“Out,” replies the Horcrux-infant in a high, thin voice, and Voldemort realizes he’d inquired aloud. “He is greeting Harry Potter. The one who killed you last.”

“That is different from before,” muses Voldemort. The label of _Horcrux-infant_ is not wholly appropriate anymore, now that it can talk. Its grotesque form had never lent itself to the image of an infant either. But there is no other way to describe it.

“You made it different,” says the Horcrux-infant. “He took longer to kill you this time. He is going to finish talking to Dumbledore, and then he is going to return to his dimension.”

“I thought he already went back,” says Voldemort, surprised. “He came back to life before I was killed. He killed me.”

“The time is different. Time is fluid here,” says the Horcrux-infant, as if it is obvious. Perhaps it is. After a moment the Horcrux-infant adds, “They are talking now. Dumbledore and Harry Potter.”

“If only I could see,” remarks Voldemort, and suddenly, he can.

A few paces away from the bench, Harry Potter, the impetuous teen, stands. His simple robes contrast with Dumbledore’s gaudy purple-gold attire. The hat, in particular, is loud.

Evidently they are unaware of Voldemort and his horcruxes and the Potter baby.

“My boy,” Dumbledore is saying, so Voldemort does not listen to the rest. Instead, he watches teenage Harry Potter struggle to think and process and decide, his insecurities naked on his face.

What a fascinating creature. Vulnerable and utterly average, wishing for normalcy, and yet possessing the unprecedented audacity to defeat the greatest Dark Lord there was.

“But everybody I loved is dead,” says Potter, eventually, in response to the choice Dumbledore presents to him: to move on or to go back. To stay is not a choice. 

Resentment rises in Voldemort. He cannot complain at the opportunity to change his Fate, to avoid the cold clutch of Death, no matter how painful it might be— but he wishes for choice. He has not figured out how to control his circumstances; they operate in a realm for which he knows not the rules, if there even are any.

Baby Potter’s enthusiastic slobbering over his hand draws him to the present. Of course, he _will_ figure out the rules. It is only a matter of time. He calms and releases his white-knuckled grip on the back of the bench. He raises his gaze once more to the scene before him.

Teenage Harry Potter hesitates to make up his mind.

“It is your choice,” says Dumbledore gently, his eyes twinkling in that condescending way of his. “You can board a train to move on, but you will save many more lives by going back. Many Death Eaters remain at large. I fear the harm they may cause.”

Voldemort’s nose twitches in disgust. How manipulative, preying on Potter’s weakness, his guilt, his need to help. His heroism. Even more horrendous is how quickly Potter falls for it.

“I will go back,” says Potter quietly, steel in his posture. Another would find it admirable. Perhaps Voldemort can muster some respect for the magical power Potter wields— for he must have some, to defeat Voldemort himself. This, though— Voldemort finds this weak. Potter bows so _easily_ , and it grates on Voldemort that he was defeated by such a morally Light _child_.

Potter’s form fades out of the train station. Dumbledore looks up and sees Voldemort, standing behind the bench.

Dumbledore’s peaceful expression falls into sorrow as he takes in the Horcruxes, then into confusion as he sees the baby Potter reaching up from the crib to attach to Voldemort’s sleeve.

Voldemort remains placid. He endures the baby with dignity.

“Is that…” Dumbledore trails off. “You… a different dimension?”

Voldemort answers him with a petty vindication. For once, he has some power over his situation; he is aware of the time loop, and Dumbledore does not. “Harry Potter killed me,” he says cryptically, adding, “He always goes back.”

“ _Always?_ ” Dumbledore’s scrutiny sharpens.

“He has no sense of self-preservation,” explains Voldemort without elaborating on _how_ he knows, lowering his face a moment to hide his amusement.

“My boy—“

“I am _not_ your boy,” hisses Voldemort, abruptly angry, abandoning his games. “Titles are earned; _nobody_ has earned my endearment. You never treated me equally, even to the other _mudbloods_ . You are suspicious. You patronize me! You label me a _freak_ just as the muggles did! Logical requests are _beyond_ you. And,” Voldemort seethes, “you have led me to _mistakes_ ! I have no doubt that this entire situation is _your fault_ . You old meddler, how many times must we cycle through this before you are satisfied? I might _rend my own flesh from bone_ before I achieve the smallest purpose!”

Dumbledore opens his mouth and closes it.

The Potter baby whines in distress and tugs on Voldemort’s soggy sleeve. Voldemort picks him up and feels better.

“Now,” Voldemort continues when it’s apparent that Dumbledore has nothing to say, the baby snuffling into the crook of his neck, “ _do_ explain.”

You see my world is spinning like there’s nothing to know

“As entertaining as his expression is, Dumbledore knows nothing,” interjects the Horcrux-infant. “And I doubt he understood the half of your enlightening outburst that was in Parseltongue.”

Voldemort resists the urge to rub his temples; the baby is in his arms. His own self is— utterly infuriating. He settles on “What the ever loving _fuck_.” to properly express his disapproval.

You see my world is feeling like it just might explode

“I would apologize,” says Dumbledore heavily, still stuck on Voldemort’s rant. “My refusal— surely this is the incident you referred to— I hope you can understand. I could not allow one muggleborn to stay at Hogwarts over the summer, for then they would all want to stay and demand to bring their families to safety and we would not have the wherewithal, Hogwarts was not authorized— I am so sorry. My hands were tied; my wand was bound. I regret that it had to be done, but I do not regret what I did.”

Voldemort stares at him, incredulous. The _excuses_ , the _audacity_ , the utter _lack of_ _comprehension_!

“I would also very much like to know what I am accused of,” adds Dumbledore.

Voldemort is so very, very done with this man. This man who raises the Potter to slaughter when he has made the accidental horcrux and who sends mere children to confront Voldemort in his place.

“Stop distracting us,” huffs the Horcrux-infant. “This is beyond you, old man.”

And yes I know it’s hard to take it backwards from my mind

“It must have begun with the Hallows,” the Horcrux-infant says thoughtfully over Dumbledore’s shocked spluttering (he was probably caught off-guard by its eloquent articulation). “The first Harry Potter won all of them. Ostensibly he should be the Master of Death. Clearly, something has gone wrong here, and instead he is stuck with you and me, looping. For when he dies before we begin again, he is looped with us. Remember how he recognized us last time?”

“Interesting,” says Voldemort. “However, if the purpose of the loop is truly tied to Harry Potter through the Hallows, then I have no reason to be here.”

“On the contrary,” says the Horcrux-infant. “You marked him as your equal. Your bond is prophesied. I connect the two of you.” It jabs at its own chest with a shriveled finger.

“Hm. We can also infer, then, that the bench is some sort of anchor in this… loop. Every time I bring a horcrux back here, it is less difficult to regain myself in the beginning. And I seem to regain my… youthful features.” Voldemort touches his nose, just to make sure it’s still there, then continues. 

“And— every loop, we horcruxes gain the loop’s memories as well. It feels less painful each time.”

“Oh so that is why you were squalling before,” Voldemort smirks. Upon the Horcrux-infant’s death glare, he refocuses. “The bench’s place here, in between Death and Life, does lend credence to your theory that the Hallows are involved.”

“ _My_ theory— but I am technically you,” says the Horcrux-infant, with a high-pitched cackle. “You are talking to yourself.”

“Thanks, very helpful,” says Voldemort sarcastically. He sighs and shifts baby Harry Potter from his right arm to his left, eyeing Dumbledore, who had been inching closer. “What kind of magic could manifest and sustain a time loop, anyhow? I have never heard of such a thing.”

“Better get to the library in your next chance, then,” suggests the Horcrux-infant.

 _Yes, instead of failing pointlessly,_ hisses the snake-horcrux, rattling with derisive laughter.

Voldemort sighs again. He moves the Locket aside and sits on the bench. “I tire of lacking answers, clarity,” he confesses, absently bouncing the Potter baby on his knee. Potter squeals with delight.

Dumbledore speaks. “It sounds to me like you’ve been given a second chance. A _lot_ of second chances. If I were you—“ his wrinkles deepen— “I would seize them.”

“What did you think I was doing?” says Voldemort. “I do not _fail_.”

He smooths a hand over Harry Potter’s soft cheek and sets him gently on the bench, stands. Nagini-horcrux immediately slithers over to the baby, the diadem hooked around its wispy head. Harry Potter pulls himself onto his feet using the slats in the back of the bench, wobbling, and toddles over to Horcrux-infant, who holds the Locket.

Voldemort thinks, _Ridiculous_ , and is tug-tug-tugged out of King’s Cross.

I need to get a ride, need to see some light come in

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. 

James Potter meets him in the foyer. A wavering “ _Jamie?_ ” echoes through Voldemort. Voldemort shivers. Anticipation, it must be.

“Move,” he suggests, feeling… merciful.

But James Potter is stubborn and noble and desperate. So he meets his end in the foyer. 

Voldemort watches the body slump to the floor, and he remembers.

ily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but does not step aside. Voldemort cannot kill her, cannot incapacitate her; both actions lead to failure. He notices that she has no wand. Her wand is not in the nursery. No one’s wand other than Voldemort’s is in the nursery.

How convenient. He can take a third option: bringing the woman with himself and Harry Potter.

“Cease your useless blathering,” he commands, and makes an aborted motion to pinch the bridge of his non-existent nose. The beginnings of a persistent headache pound behind his eyes. He will float all of them out of the wall. That is the safe option from before.

Harry Potter lights up behind his mother. “Vo, vo, _vol_ , vo!” he starts babbling, the third repetition a clumsy hiss of Parseltongue, and reaches his tiny hands towards Voldemort. Despite himself, Voldemort wants to reach back. Oh, Merlin’s sagged, wrinkly balls, he’s grown attached.

Lily Evans-Potter seizes upon his distraction and stabs a blade through his left eye and up through his brain. Blinding pain. He is reduced to a wraith before he registers what happened.

 _Snap_.

(Lily, up until her death a mere year after Voldemort’s attack on Godric’s Hollow, assumes that her child’s sudden enthusiasm that day had stemmed from his friendliness towards strangers. She mistakes ‘Vo’ for ‘’lo’, a shortened ‘hello’. She tries to impress upon her child that strangers are Bad.

“I _remember_ you,” Harry insists in the Forest of Death. He has never told anybody. But he _has_ to know. “Please, you’re so familiar, don’t you recognize me?” His eyes are pleading, stricken with a grief that he has carried for so long, he doesn’t know when it took root.

Voldemort, crazed and empty, casts the _avada kedavra_ with relish.)

Can’t I just turn back the clock?

King’s Cross _shudders_ . Voldemort falls to his knees and clutches at his head, agonized. It cannot be. It _cannot be_. 

“Calm the _fuck_ down!” Horcrux-infant’s voice pierces through him.

But oh, he _had the chance_ and he _failed_ . Harry Potter _asked him,_ never stopped _asking him_ and he _didn’t remember_ . His memory had always been perfect and yet he _did not remember._

It is a _curse_. A cruel, cruel, curse.

“Breathe!” shrieks Horcrux-infant, more shrill.

Voldemort feels his breath rattle in and out of his tightening lungs. He cannot— he cannot go _on_ like this. 

Because it is the hope that hurts the most. Every time, the slate is wiped clean. Every time, he thinks, _this is the time I will succeed_ . But it is inevitable that he fails, because he is _cursed_. He gets a little further every time; how many times must he repeat it?

The tug-tug-tugging away _hurts_ ; it uses his magic to oppose the natural balance of things, to loop through time. Albania, that hellish decade, _hurts_ ; it is pain pain pain, but worse, it is— _please do not let me forget, the bench, my soul, little Harry Potter’s babbling, do not let me forget any of it—_ and the slow slip of his memories until he cannot recall the green of Harry Potter’s eyes or the unbearable white of King’s cross. The destruction of every horcrux echoes in his throbbing soul. He can no longer pretend at ignorance.

He feels the pain. The pain is inevitable. Because he is cursed, he must be. He can acknowledge that he has committed what the Light would call _atrocities_ but how do his atrocities measure up to so much _pain_? How can he deserve this?

A Sunday evening at Wool’s Orphanage, crisp and precise in his perfect memory:

 _You are a freak, and freaks go to hell._ Missus Cole. Her words had been slurred, because she drank a bottle of liquor after every Mass. This time she’d added a bottle to her usual fare, because Tom’s exorcism had failed.

_What’s hell?_

_You will address me with respect!_

_Pardon, ma’am. What’s hell, ma’am?_

Missus Cole’s foul breath washed over his face as she leaned down. _Hell is for freaks like you. When you die, you are sent there to suffer for your sins. I know you sabotaged the ritual, boy! You’re going to hell!_

 _I understand, ma’am._ _May I go eat? The others will take it all if I don’t go soon._

A slap. _Impertinence, boy!_

_Pardon, ma’am. May I go eat, ma’am?_

_I’m locking you in the attic with the Bible. Learn your lessons, boy, get rid of that awful freakishness._

_Yes, ma’am._ He’d read the Bible and grown bored with the rumbling of his stomach. It was obvious to him at the time that Missus Cole was wrong. God was supposed to be forgiving, and Tom couldn’t be blamed for something he had no control over.

A few days later, he’d lost the faith he never had. There was no way to survive without using his power. If there truly was a God, then He wasn’t answering Tom’s prayers; Tom could fend for himself, and He didn’t have to know. He was already being overlooked, anyway.

The orphanage left him alone after that. He did what was necessary to ensure that he always got enough food to eat, enough blankets to stay warm, enough fear protection from the other children, and then he took more and no god reprimanded him for it.

Forgive my sins

Voldemort notes distantly that the train station has quieted. He hadn’t been screaming or yelling or crying. The noise before had come from the rumbling of the train station. It’s quiet.

His thoughts are disjointed.

“Where am I?” asks a voice, hesitantly breaking the silence.

“In-between,” answers Dumbledore. “You cannot help him.” Voldemort raises his head. His cheeks are dry. 

But Harry Potter, teenage Harry Potter’s cheeks are wet. His eyes glisten, so green. Voldemort remembers the color. One hand is paused mid-air, reaching towards Voldemort. It trembles slightly. Potter withdraws it and shoves it in the pocket of his simple robe.

He parrots, “I _remember_ you,” and keenly misses how the baby Potter, his Potter, would slobber over his sleeve. 

Potter’s quiet “You do?” is buried under Dumbledore’s “He is insane, Harry. This is what happens when you are so afraid of death that you will do anything, even rend your soul, to avoid it.

“He has always been afraid of death.”

At this, Voldemort throws his head back and laughs. It is a broken laugh because he cannot bring himself to care. He knows something worse than Death: this limbo, this _failure failure failure—_

Everything revolves around Harry Potter. He needs Harry Potter to _understand_.

“I am gliding up the path to the Potter residence,” he recites numbly. He feels mad. He feels truly insane now. “James Potter meets his end in the foyer. I shiver in anticipation. Sometimes I offer him mercy. ‘ _Move,’_ I say, but he never takes the chance. He is always pathetically obstinate. He is no match for me. Later when Sirius Black finds his body, he will utter ‘ _Jamie?’_ in a wavering voice.”

“Oh,” says Harry Potter, a small, quivering sound.

“Lily Evans-Potter begs for mercy, but she never steps aside. Sometimes I snuff out her pathetic obstinance and I break Severus’ Vow. That’s how the Killing Curse rebounded the first few times. Sometimes I incapacitate her, but then she kills me after I kill you. Sometimes I try to change things and Lily Evans-Potter stabs me with a letter-opener! Who knew she had it in her?”

“ _Oh_.”

“It is you, it is always you, my horcrux, my downfall, my killer, my savior, I never remember you after Albania, I never _remember_ . Go back! Go back! Leave me here and we do it all over again! It is a curse, I am cursed, this is my hell— Missus Cole was right all along, wasn’t she, the smug _bitch_!”

“Voldemort,” says Harry Potter, kneeling, unbearably kind. Selfless. “Please, stop, I forgive you. I’ve already forgiven you.” His hand hovers over Voldemort’s shoulder for a moment before he swallows and settles it down and squeezes. “You can move on now, don’t worry so much about it! I talked with my parents and Sirius and Remus using the Resurrection Stone. They say it doesn’t hurt at all. And look, you have a nose!”

The attempt at levity falls flat. Voldemort does not _understand_ this creature. He grasps at the hand on his shoulder like a lifeline. “You need to go back. You shouldn’t remember this. This time was a failure. Go back, save your friends. You always go back.”

“Always?” frowns Potter.

Voldemort does not want him to understand anymore. “You have to do it. Go back.” He wills the damage in King’s Cross to disappear. It does. He wills himself to disappear. He does.

I just wanna roll my sleeves up

Harry Potter gapes at the space he leaves. Now that Harry Potter and Dumbledore cannot see him, he can see his bench, his horcruxes, and the crib. His baby Potter immediately starts babbling in demand. Voldemort scoops him up in a warm, wriggling bundle. He breathes. Drool soaks into his shoulder.

The horcruxes are tellingly silent.

“This is a horrible idea,” says the Horcrux-infant. “You have no idea how horrible this might be. Getting attached?”

“I have always been selfish,” says Tom defensively. “I want this. I will lose myself without some anchor.”

The Horcrux-infant shakes its head. “Greedy. Too greedy. Remember the last time you were greedy? Oh, right, it caused this whole fucking mess. You made your horcruxes too prestigious, too obvious, and Dumbledore figured you out.”

Tom stiffens, but he does not deny his ego. He is a talented liar because he sees the truth clearly. He does not lie to himself.

“It matters not if Dumbledore figures me out now,” says Voldemort. “He will not remember in the next cycle. I should search for the Cup.” He doesn’t move.

The Horcrux-infant lets out a weak groan of frustration. “We are so hopeless.”

“On the contrary. The hope is why it hurts,” says Voldemort. “I do not _fail_.”

“You do too,” says the Horcrux-infant irritably.

“I do not.”

The Locket opens and a younger Voldemort drifts out of it, like a genie but without the lamp. It looks to be in a strange transitioning stage between human and reptilian-monstrous. The image of Locket-horcrux crosses its arms. “So this is what I become in my later years.” It sneers. “Pathetic. Childish. Incapable.”

“Please,” snaps Voldemort, protectively cupping the back of the baby Potter’s head with a hand, “if you have any _useful_ ideas for solving this situation, _share_ them.”

“What crawled up your arse and died?” Locket shoots back, and chuckles unpleasantly. “Besides, I am _you_. I cannot have ideas that I myself do not have.”

 _Irritable humans_ , hisses Nagini-horcrux. _I want mice. Juicy mice. Chase. There are no mice here._

“I suppose you wouldn't need to eat without a physical body,” says Harry Potter, except— Harry Potter is a baby in his arms, nearly asleep. 

Voldemort whirls around in a manner reminiscent to his first encounter with the Potter baby, back when the in-between was still new. He automatically tightens his grip, pressing the baby closer to his chest— but— no. The baby is fading.

“Wait— no,” gasps Voldemort, surprised, and the baby is gone. 

Horcrux-infant’s eyes bulge at Voldemort’s empty hands. “What did you do!” it shrieks, “What did you do!” It tries to push itself onto its deformed feet, but it falls over. Nagini-horcrux darts underneath it; the catch fails. The Horcrux-infant falls with a thump through the wispy snake, onto the bench.

Harry Potter catches it before it rolls all the way off the bench seat, saving it from a nasty bump on the floor.

Then it falls the rest of the way anyway, as Harry Potter is impossibly whisked away at the same time as Voldemort.

And start again

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence.

James Potter meets him in the foyer. A wavering “ _Jamie?_ ” echoes through Voldemort. Voldemort shivers. It is not anticipation. It is those features. That hair. Those are Harry Potter’s. He is here to kill Harry Potter. He cannot. He—

He remembers.

Voldemort does not need to be merciful. James Potter will never give in; he is stubborn and noble and desperate. So he meets his end in the foyer.

Voldemort watches the body slump to the floor. He… he does not want Harry Potter’s body to do the same.

On the well-worn route up the stairs, a line of family photos hang on the walls. One in particular captures his attention. His footsteps pause briefly as he takes in the family photo. Harry Potter whizzes around the living room on a toy broom two feet off the ground. Lily Evans-Potter chases after him with a helmet. James Potter and Sirius Black double over with hilarity in the background.

Voldemort moves on.

Lily Evans-Potter starts begging for mercy as soon as he enters the nursery.

He doesn’t bother to listen to her. He aims his wand at her and casts. The spell streaks towards her, red and vicious. The air warps around it. Lily Evans-Potter’s eyes widen— that green, Voldemort thinks with some fondness— Harry Potter screams behind her— 

The spell shoots past her, barely grazing her side, and hits the letter-opener on the nightstand. The little blade is banished.

“Now,” he tucks his wand into his sleeve in a gesture of goodwill—

Lily Evans-Potter howls with desperation and stabs him. This time she aims for his gut. Bewildered, he takes quite a few more vicious strikes: stomach, kidney, lung, lung, heart. Blood, blood, blood. He gurgles and collapses. She leans over him and plunges the blade— a proper fighting one, where did it even come from?— into his jugular.

The last thing he hears is Potter screaming (again); the last thing he thinks is: _What_ is _this woman?_ Then he knows no more.

 _Snap_.

(“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Harry Potter tells the Voldemort-parasite at the Mirror of Erised. “I’m not mad, I know I’m not mad! I sometimes see King’s Cross in the mirror. I _remember_ , please tell me you remember. I don’t want to be alone anymore, I’m so confused—“

Harry Potter gives up in the Chamber of Secrets. He knows who he is. His father is dead. His mother is dead— it’d been a sudden magical sickness. His godfather is in Azkaban. He is a glorified house-elf for the Dursleys. He is a Gryffindor. He knows his fellow students before he meets them.

He remembers his life. He’s reliving his life. It’s almost the same as before. The similarities pain him. The differences pain him.

He knows that Tom Marvolo Riddle’s face is a younger version of the beloved figure he sees in his dreams. There are warm feelings in him for that face, but they are not _his_ feelings. Dream-him drools on older Riddle’s shoulder and chews on older Riddle’s sleeve. Older Riddle softens when he sees Dream-him. Harry will wake sometimes to a caress of his cheek.

It feels worse, he thinks, the longing. The vague longing he’d felt in the last life is worse in this life because he knows now that it is wrong, it is for his nemesis, Voldemort does not know him, Voldemort is hell-bent on killing him and everyone precious to him. It feels like a betrayal, except he has no reason to be betrayed.

He can’t be mad. It’s been eleven years. He can’t be. He destroys Riddle’s diary horcrux and gets bitten by the basilisk and lays back, ready to give up.

Fawkes doesn’t let him give up. Dumbledore pushes him.

Voldemort does not recognize him at the graveyard in fourth year. Voldemort does not recognize him at the Ministry. Harry tries to talk to him through their mind link. Voldemort’s mind is madness.

Nobody believes him. Harry is not mad.

Voldemort, crazed and empty, casts the _avada kedavra_ with relish.)

I know that I messed it up

It’s King’s Cross materializing around him, unbearably white.

Voldemort stands still for a moment, processing his memories, then rushes to the bench. There is no crib. No babbling greets him. The diadem lays discarded on the floor. Horcrux-infant halts his frantic search with a look. Harry Potter is gone.

His baby is gone. He’d gotten attached. _Shows you right, we warned you, it was a bad idea from the beginning, but no, selfish again, left behind again,_ none of the Horcruxes say.

Voldemort sits on the bench. Instead of a prim, pureblood posture, he slouches. Disliking the slouch, he leans back. The bench supports his head and neck at an uncomfortable angle.

He’d failed again. His baby asked him and he did not remember. His baby was not the same as before; his baby knew of his own life beyond a year with his parents and King’s Cross. Voldemort had half-expected this so he only feels numb. There is some grief swimming up his throat. He swallows it.

He has no anchor now, does he. Pathetic, that he needs a living being. He has always stood alone within the crowd. He finds that sitting alone, without, is not much better.

“Thank Merlin you’re here,” exclaims grown Harry Potter, and Voldemort tilts his head slightly towards the noise.

“So you decided to stay,” says Voldemort listlessly. “Good on you. You died before I cycled through again. Now you’ll keep your memories of this life. Hurrah.”

Harry Potter steps up behind the bench and leans over to see Voldemort’s face. Unlike Missus Cole and Lily Evans-Potter’s leaning, Harry Potter’s leaning is in goodwill. He has grown out of his baby fat, though his eyes are as bright as ever. His hands are on his hips.

“Overdramatic bastard,” he says, almost fondly. “You owe an explanation for why I kept dreaming about being a baby, and nobody believed that I knew you before, not even you yourself.”

Voldemort closes his eyes and sinks bonelessly into the bench. “I should go look for Hufflepuff’s cup.” He doesn’t move. He doesn’t have the energy for fragile hope.

“I’m sorry that my mother stabbed you,” offers Harry Potter. After a moment with no response, he huffs. “I’ll get to you eventually, you know. You can’t avoid me forever.”

Voldemort breathes evenly, thinking of the small bundle that fit so nicely in his arms. He thinks of his dreams of immortality, so far out of reach due to this curse. He thinks that once he keeps his lucidity for more than a few hours a cycle he might be able to research time loops.

Harry Potter’s footsteps eventually move away. He greets each Horcrux— none of them return the greetings— and finds Dumbledore eavesdropping from a pillar to the left of the bench.

“Professor!” he exclaims with the delight that he used to bestow upon Voldemort.

Voldemort doubts Harry Potter’s claim of ‘getting to him eventually’. If Harry Potter is trying to circumvent what Voldemort now knows is inevitable Fate, then Harry Potter is more imbecilic than he’d thought. Which is quite a feat, as he’d struggled to attribute more than two brain cells to the reckless Gryffindor before, especially when he compared Harry Potter to his own genius.

Merlin, he’s really tired.

He cannot help the fragile hope that blooms in him, now that Potter knows of the loop.

Time and time again

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence.

James Potter meets him in the foyer. Voldemort takes one look at the man and almost turns around right then and there when he remembers.

But… he wants to see Harry Potter. So with a simple spell, he sticks James Potter to the ceiling and wanders up the stairs, pausing at the photo of Harry Potter whizzing around the living room, then continuing. He takes a deep breath, casts a shield charm on his robes, and pushes open the door to the nursery instead of blasting it.

Lily Evans-Potter’s pleads for mercy greet him. There is no additional babbling, no innocent enthusiasm. He gets only a slight, suspicious smile from the child hiding behind his mother. So Potter remembers too.

The part he misses the most about baby Potter is probably his unconditional acceptance, no matter how much Voldemort _failed_. Baby Potter always gave him another chance to get things right.

He swallows the lump in his throat.

“I am here only to make sure your son is alive,” he says, non-threatening, holding his hands up with his wand tucked away, not murder-proofing the room. The letter-opener gleams on the nightstand and Lily Evans-Potter’s deft fingers reach for a seam in her nightgown, presumably where she keeps that wicked dagger. Voldemort pretends not to notice. “Good-bye. Pretend I was never here. Get your husband down from the ceiling in the living room.”

He turns to leave. He should research time loops. He has procrastinated for far too long.

“Wait!” Harry Potter calls, halting both Voldemort and his mother, who has drawn the dagger and was about to stab. He speaks with a lisp despite obvious efforts to enunciate. “You gonna leave me here, Vol? I thought you were better than that.”

Voldemort turns back around, an eyebrow raised. He doesn’t actually have an eyebrow, so it’s just the flesh on his brow that moves, but the effect is just as derisive as it would have been with hair. Harry thinks it looks comical and breaks down laughing. When he’s smiling, he almost channels his baby counterpart, except there is no counterpart anymore. Teen Harry Potter of the war and baby Harry Potter of King’s Cross have merged. Voldemort feels regret for not savoring his time with the baby more, and wonders if this is grief.

Lily Potter’s head swivels between her son and the Dark Lord, calculating. _Her son can talk. Who knew. Oh, the Dark Lord, apparently._

Voldemort decides to leave before Harry Potter distracts him further. Someone has to be the responsible one and stop the time loop.

I just wanna roll my sleeves up

Time loops are precarious things. So are the myths on the Deathly Hallows. There is little to no substance on them, and even less (i.e. _nothing_ ) on how the two might be connected. 

In the Black, Lestrange, and Malfoy libraries. Voldemort uses a handy charm he’d perfected in his fifth year at Hogwarts to speed his research. It searches for a keyword and lights up books that contain it. He finds nothing important.

Borgin and Burke’s: nothing. All the other pureblood libraries, less impressive than the three before: nothing. Obscure shops and obscure, even Light connections: nothing. Voldemort tries Flourish and Blotts on a whim. Nothing.

There is one last library to check before Voldemort will look abroad. He has been avoiding it. He is reluctant to go. But he is nothing if not thorough.

Hopefully the Light family will take a little more kindly to him than last time. He has buried his Death Eaters’ operations, noting who protested and who was relieved. He has made it clear that he does not intend to kill Harry Potter.

He knocks on the door, three short raps. The door is opened a crack and he is met with a wand to the face.

Okay, so maybe he’d broken the wards and the Fidelius charm to get in. Funny how a little sanity goes a long way in enabling him.

“I am here to use your library,” intones Voldemort. “Kindly let me pass.”

The wand lowers slightly. “What?”

“I detest pointless repetition,” says Voldemort.

“... You’re the Dark Lord,” says Lily Evans-Potter, incredulously.

“Yes,” says Voldemort. He tires of waiting. He wrenches the door open the rest of the way, pushes past her impatiently, and strides through the foyer, into the living room.

“Lily, who’s that?” James Potter calls from the kitchen, his voice muffled.

Voldemort sweeps past him, through the kitchen. Or he tries to. James Potter stabs him in the back with a kitchen knife.

What is it with this family and knives?

“Voldemort? _Riddle?_ ”

“Harry Potter,” mumbles Voldemort, somewhat delirious from blood loss.

“Stay back!” shouts James Potter, knife poised to strike again.

“Merlin, you stabbed him for no reason!” yells Harry Potter. Voldemort is kind of touched— it does hurt— but the defense is unnecessary. He’ll just start over. And Harry will live this time with his family. Win-win.

“Oh, don’t say that, silly,” says Potter, closer now. “I want to remember this. How do I remember this?”

“Don’t,” recommends Voldemort, sluggishly. “It only works if you choose to stay at King’s Cross before I am cycled back in again.”

Potter’s eyes harden with resolve. “Well, I’ll just have to get to King’s Cross, won’t I?” 

Voldemort’s reprimand dies on his lips. He breathes out.

 _Snap_.

And start again


	2. Start Again - 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: temporary suicide, graphic depictions of violence (short torture sequence in the beginning: to skip it, stop and start reading at the bolded words, see end notes for important plot point (non-graphic))

2 [Start Again](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-2VKeDBPkw)

(By OneRepubic ft. Logic)

Harry Potter watches Voldemort bleed out on his kitchen floor. It is so _different._ He doesn’t know why. He has an idea. He doesn’t _know_.

Voldemort said there was a time loop. Harry believes him, but it’s still difficult to make the decision to lunge for the chef’s knife in his daddy’s hand and impale himself.

“Sorry, Prongs, Mom,” he says through his blurring vision. “Voldemort needs me more.”

He hopes his smile is reassuring. 

He breathes out.

He breathes in. 

He’s at St. Mungo’s. His parents hover over him, wringing their hands about suicidal tendencies and insanity.

Harry finally convinces them to leave him alone for a bit. He smacks himself. He’d been hasty. Voldemort still has horcruxes, so the cycle wouldn’t start again with Harry’s death.

Harry convinces the doctors that he’s fine. He sees a shrink and hides his horcrux hunt. His parents treat him like he will shatter with a touch. He’s fine. He’s not mad. He lives a double life.

Voldemort returns, insane. He does not recognize Harry. Harry destroys every single horcrux. Nobody believes him because he doesn’t tell anybody. He’s not mad.

Voldemort, crazed and empty, casts the _avada kedavra_ with relish.

Harry can stay or go back. He chooses to stay.

Cedric Diggory strikes the killing blow.

Feelin’ like maybe I’m unappreciated

King’s Cross materializes around Harry, majestically pristine and white. 

“What are you doing here?” Voldemort demands, leaping up from where he’d been arranging something on the bench. “I failed! I told you not to do it!”

Harry lifts his chin, refuses to cower. “It’s my choice. I deserve to know.”

Voldemort pauses, as if expecting a “Know what?” from behind a certain pillar.

“Dumbledore didn’t die this time, you imbecile,” says a high, thin voice. Dream-Harry recognizes that voice. It’s an… infant on the bench? But no, it can’t be an infant, because its limbs are shriveled and grey and its eyes are cold and intelligent. He recalls greeting it before he was whisked away last time, and it’d ignored him.

Voldemort scowls. That’s… weird. Even after his impassioned outburst last ‘cycle’, which is when Harry started noticing his human ticks, it’s unsettling to see the Dark Lord so… expressive. He means— expressive beyond smug-cackling-hate, victory-haha, and oh-no-I’m-about-to-die.

Harry pushes past the memories. “I came here because I want to help. Tell me what’s going on. Let me help.”

“No,” says Voldemort. His tone brooks no arguments. He collapses back onto the bench and looks away.

“ _No_ ,” Harry repeats incredulously, “ _no??_ Why the ever _not?_ ”

“You shouldn’t,” says Voldemort. He swallows. He doesn’t continue.

“Because…?” Harry presses.

“Enjoy your childhood while you still can. Be happy with your parents and your friends and your wife,” snaps Voldemort. “Stop _asking._ ”

“I didn’t marry Ginny in the last life,” Harry is startled into correcting. “It was—” he blushes— “Cedric. Cedric Diggory.”

“You _what?_ ” exclaims Voldemort, sitting up straight.

“Is that so unbelievable?” says Harry. Maybe it is; Cedric had been so good to him, better than he deserved. “Besides, why do you care?”

Voldemort doesn’t answer.

Like my presence in your life has been alleviated

Bloody _hell_. Is this some— some kind of twisted from of _protection?_ Harry had meant it when he said that Voldemort needs him more.

Harry is well aware that Voldemort can be monstrously cruel. But he also knows that Voldemort can _care_. Dream-baby-Harry’s memories attest to the kindness Voldemort can bestow upon others. That kindness, that potential to do good, or at least not evil, it’s just often buried underneath the madness that Harry suspects is caused by the Horcruxes, and, perhaps, the lack of love in Voldemort’s childhood. Dumbledore had shown him the bleak memories of young Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Dream-Harry knows that Voldemort is capable of unconditional acceptance. Otherwise, Voldemort would have murdered him when he first slobbered over Voldemort’s robes. (How embarrassing.)

Dream-Harry misses how Voldemort would look at him like he was important.

Voldemort has tipped his head onto the back of the bench. His eyes are closed. Harry would think him asleep if not for the pinch of his brow.

He looks exhausted. Harry wonders how many times he’d cycled through before Harry cottoned on and chose to stay at King’s Cross. Likely too many, for the man’s terrifying drive to have been destroyed so thoroughly.

“You were the earliest one, you know?” says Harry, and Voldemort stiffens but doesn’t move otherwise. “I may not be a baby anymore— that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. We’re in this together. Let me help, please.”

“I research just fine on my own,” says Voldemort shortly.

“Seriously, you can’t expect me to stay out of this.”

Voldemort cracks an eye open and scrutinizes Harry with a sliver of red. Then, he closes it again.

“What, you’re not gonna argue?” asks Harry, caught off-guard.

Voldemort huffs. When he speaks, he sounds amused. “Do you want me to?” Voldemort cuts off Harry’s hurried protest. “You have the same set to your jaw as your father. Argument would be pointless, and I detest pointless things.”

Harry tactfully refrains from commenting that if Voldemort had skipped the pointless monologues, he may actually have succeeded at killing Harry and taking over wizarding Britain.

Voldemort thinks that he doesn’t need Harry.

Harry will show him.

He starts by exploring the train station. It grows more detailed the more he looks. The white tile gives way to golden paving that runs along the side of the train tracks. The tracks are metal and there is no train. Mounted upon the wall on the opposite platform is an unreadable clock, ticking. 

The bench is one of many. On another Harry finds Hufflepuff’s cup, another horcrux, and brings it back to the bench. The shriveled Horcrux-infant glares suspiciously. Voldemort is asleep and so does not react.

Harry will show him.

I feel like everything I’ve done before is different now

(Voldemort detests a lot of things. Pointless repetition. Tediousness. Incompetence. Gliding up the path to the Potter residence.)

Harry is slammed into the crib of his childhood nursery. No, the young body in the crib. His body. He’s cycled back again.

He groans. It comes out as a pitiful whine.

Merlin, this is unpleasant. If it always hurts so much, then he can’t blame Voldemort for his lethargy.

Now, just to wait for Voldemort to arrive.

… After tense hours of _nothing_ , his mom is in full Worry Mode. She’s tried everything to cheer him up. Harry does his best to pretend that yes, colored blocks are the most fascinating things in the world, he is just a normal one-year-old. His mother is not convinced and constantly repositions herself between him and the door, which he’s been glancing anxiously at all day.

Evening falls. No sign of Voldemort.

Evidently, Voldemort has taken advantage of his young age to leave him behind. Indignant and cross, Harry curses at Voldemort. Because he’s in a baby’s body, his curses come out as distressed wails. Lily rushes over and fusses with his napkin. Harry fumes and squashes his dinner with a tiny fist. Hot, humiliating tears drip down his chin.

“I don’t know what’s _up_ with him today,” says his mom, frazzled.

His daddy blinks behind his glasses. His eyes are warm, and so is his hand when he ruffles Harry’s hair. “Aw, sweetie.” He coos at Harry. That’s great, but _Voldemort left Harry behind._ His daddy straightens. “We can turn in early today, Lily,” he says. “I’ll clean up the mess and you tuck Prongslet in, okay? Shh, don’t worry. I’ll be up there in a bit.”

His mom gives a watery, relieved smile, and his parents kiss. It’s disgustingly sappy. Harry is both guilty for causing so much trouble and immensely frustrated because ugh. Voldemort. Literally almost every problem in his life can be traced back to Voldemort.

The next day, Harry steadily loses hope until it’s evening again. He resigns himself to several years of growing up. His mom tucks him into the crib again and he feigns sleep.

When she leaves, he sighs and stares up at the ceiling. Thankfully, this sigh actually comes out like it’s supposed to. Stuck on the ceiling are large, grinning stars, dancing.

His parents’ hushed whispers just outside the nursery catch his attention. His mom heaves a strangled sob. Harry rolls over to watch her silhouette double over in the doorway.

_Snap._

“Everything’s going to be okay, everything’s going to be alright,” says his daddy, presumably rubbing soothing circles into her back. “He’s dead, he’s gone. Lily, we can have a— a _life_ again.” And his dad stutters and also breaks down.

An unwelcome realization nudges at Harry’s mind. They’re so happy. It can’t be.

He is three when he finally pieces together what had happened. The day after Voldemort didn’t enter the Potter house like he usually does, Peter Pettigrew chickened out and confessed to his betrayal. 

Regulus Black caught wind of this right before he’d been about to confront the cave of inferi for the Locket-horcrux. Upon his return to Grimmauld Place, he dueled the Dark Lord in the Black libraries, catching him off guard and ultimately killing him. Harry guesses that Voldemort was just tired. Because Regulus Black became so instrumental to the defeat of Lord Voldemort, he’s been lauded as a hero.

Harry is three when he meets Uncle Reggie and realizes with dread that Voldemort will go insane in Albania, and Harry has to kill him and himself to restart the loop.

Because of the Dursleys, Harry knows full well how precious his time with his loving family is. But this— this is beyond his own happiness. This is important.

He enjoys his childhood. As soon as he’s at Hogwarts with his wand and his invisibility cloak, he opens the Chamber of Secrets. The basilisk lets him milk its venom. He travels around Britain and destroys horcruxes. He waits for Voldemort to return.

Voldemort returns. The war is brutal. Harry gets stuck on the Cup-horcrux and Nagini, both of which Voldemort guards fiercely. The war is more brutal than it has ever been. Harry is captured. This time, Draco is more fearful and does not help him. He does not escape. 

He does not tell Voldemort anything in the month it takes Snape to brew Veritaserum.

“Tell me where the Order of the Phoenix’s headquarters is,” **Voldemort** **hisses**. Harry looks at the far wall, tracing the questionable stains with a blank stare. He does not respond when Voldemort digs his nails into his face. He does not respond under _crucio_ or any other manner of physical pain, even when his skin is peeled from his inner thigh strip by agonizing strip. He only clams up under the Nightmare curse and he cannot reveal anything when he’s too busy being unconscious from the dementor.

Voldemort makes the double mistake of unshackling Harry, believing him to be weak, and bringing Nagini into the cell. Harry lunges with the tiny blade he’d hidden under his tongue. Nagini dies. After the mind-scrambling _crucio_ , Harry thinks: one left. The cup, and then anyone can finish the job. One left.

One left.

Voldemort is intelligent. He captures Ron. Harry watches Ron’s intestines spill out of his body, pink and red red red, white bone, dull eyes, beating heart, stiff corpse. One left.

Harry watches Hermione scream for his help, scrabbling blindly at the concrete floor, shredding her nails and fingertips. Her scalp is a bloody mess, her hair gone. Eventually she cannot scream at all. One left.

Voldemort treats Cedric Diggory the worst. Cedric doesn’t deserve it. Though it feels disrespectful, Harry squeezes his eyes shut. He cannot watch. Cedric doesn’t scream for him. Cedric screams for Cho Chang.

 **After that,** Draco caves and brings him the Cup. Harry is glad. He removes the pouch of basilisk venom from his cheek. It holds a few drops. He considers them for a long moment.

“Anyone can kill Voldemort after this,” he tells Draco. “You can do it.”

Draco’s ashen face pales further. 

Harry smiles at him. He hopes his smile is reassuring. “I believe in you,” he says, and upends the pouch over the Cup. The Cup screams. Footsteps pound on the floor above.

Harry lifts the pouch as the last drop of poison quivers at its opening. 

“No!” gasps Draco, but he’s too late. The deadly liquid sizzles on Harry’s tongue.

Harry licks his lips and lies back. Burning spreads through his veins. It is peaceful. He is going where he is needed.

“Don’t just stay there like an idiot— get your wand ready,” he croaks.

He breathes out.

But I can see clearer than ever from a distance now

King’s Cross materializes around Harry, majestically pristine and white.

There is no Dumbledore because Dumbledore did not die. Voldemort is waiting for him. Voldemort steps forward and cups his face with large hands. His nails don’t dig in as they did before; the touch is gentle.

“Why did you do that?” He sounds awed and frightened. The train station trembles.

Every day I do it, I been goin’ through it

“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” Harry says. He doesn’t wait for an answer. He asks a question that’s bothered him since the beginning of the last cycle. “Does it always hurt like that? The looping?”

Voldemort drops his hands. “Yes,” he says simply, like Harry is particularly stupid for having to ask.

This man. His sheer endurance humbles Harry. Harry says, solemn, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for that,” says Voldemort. “It is inevitable. If you must think, think on how we might avoid such failure in the future. How to end this cursed looping.”

“So you’re letting me help?” asks Harry, brightening. “Brilliant! Tell me everything.”

But you never knew it ‘cause I never showed you

“Are you truly ‘fine’?” Voldemort asks, after they have rehashed everything they know about the time loop. It’s not much. “You underwent intense torture. I wish to resolve any issues you may retain from it sooner rather than later.”

“I’m not mad, but that’s not how recovery works,” says Harry. “Sometimes it’s never ‘resolved’. Sirius—”

“I know,” Voldemort interrupts impatiently. “At the very least, though, you must recover to a state where it does not impair your function. Else you will be dead weight.”

“I’m fine,” Harry says. “It’s not like I haven’t been traumatized before… Wait, you _can_ help me, though. Bring me with you when the cycle starts. Don’t leave me behind like last time. Okay?”

“I would have done that anyway,” says Voldemort. “Obviously, the last cycle was a failure.”

“Somehow we need to convince my mom and dad not to kill you,” muses Harry. “It kind of worked, whatever you did the cycle before last. You stayed alive for a while.”

Voldemort frowns in recollection. “I stuck James Potter to the ceiling. I warded myself before entering the nursery, and your talking stopped her from stabbing me.”

“You stuck my daddy to the _ceiling,_ ” Harry guffaws, and laughs at that for quite a while. 

Voldemort crosses his arms defensively. “We should look for the last of my horcruxes in the station,” he mutters once Harry has calmed down. “And then, the only library in Britain I have not checked is the Potter one.”

“We’ll do it together,” promises Harry, and he takes Voldemort’s hand to lead him onwards. 

The train station’s detail blooms the more they look. The white tile gives way to golden paving that runs along the side of the train tracks. The tracks are metal and there is no train. Mounted upon the wall on the opposite platform is an unreadable clock, ticking. 

They follow the tracks. Snagged on the edge of one, they find the Peverell ring. The resurrection stone. Since Voldemort is taller and won’t let Harry do it, he is the one to carefully climb down the platform and retrieve the Ring-horcrux. Harry pulls him back up. His face, an older version of the diary-Tom Riddle, is flushed.

He’s handsome, and so _different_ from the insane, empty Voldemort who casts _avada kedavra_ with relish.

You gave me the world, so I feel I owed you

It is one moment. They are walking side by side back to the bench. The only sound is that of the ticking clock on the opposite platform.

Voldemort thinks about the boy trotting at his side. For Harry Potter is only a boy compared to Voldemort. Only a boy who was the first to offer him unconditional affection, who was the first to defeat him utterly, who chose to stay instead of returning to his friends and family and happiness. Who has the chance to live freely and _doesn’t take it_ because he wants to help Voldemort, even after Voldemort tortured him to near insanity. Harry Potter is so kind that he is an imbecile. 

Harry Potter is strong.

Voldemort owes Harry Potter. He does not take his debts lightly.

I been lookin’ through the mirror and that’s the old you

Voldemort’s presence at Harry’s side is strong. Harry wonders what it’s like to be the sort of person who enters a room and immediately draws everyone’s attention— not necessarily because of a title, Harry knows what that’s like, but because of one’s utter confidence in themself. 

Harry isn’t dull-witted; he knows that the Dursleys and a dozen other small things have done a number on his self-esteem. It is especially clear when he is beside Voldemort. Voldemort, who is so sure of himself that he has not lost his mind for so many cycles, enduring endless pain; Voldemort, who is so sure of himself that he kept his identity and gave Harry a family. Voldemort, who overcomes insanity over and over again to spare Harry’s parents and changes what had seemed to be Fate. Voldemort, who fails and fails and fails but keeps going.

Voldemort, who is strong.

Harry Potter owes Voldemort. He does not take his debts lightly, either.

I’ma get it right now, don’t know how

Harry is slammed into the crib of his childhood nursery. No, the young body in the crib. His body. He’s cycled back again.

He groans. It comes out as a pitiful whine.

Merlin, this is unpleasant. If it always hurts so much, then he can’t blame Voldemort for his lethargy.

Now, just to wait for Voldemort to arrive.

Voldemort is gliding up the path to the Potter residence. With a simple spell, he sticks James Potter to the ceiling in the foyer and wanders up the stairs, pausing at the photo of Harry Potter whizzing around the living room, then continuing. He takes a deep breath, casts a shield charm on his robes, and pushes open the door to the nursery instead of blasting it.

Lily Evans-Potter’s pleads for mercy greet him. There is no additional babbling, no innocent enthusiasm. He swallows some grief for baby Potter and his unconditional affection, his unlimited chances to get things right no matter how much Voldemort _failed._

“Hi, Voldie,” greets Harry Potter from behind his mother, clumsily pulling himself up with the bars of the crib. So Potter remembers too. He speaks with a lisp. “C’mon.” He reaches out for Voldemort with his tiny hands, unwittingly echoing Baby Potter’s past habit.

The letter-opener gleams on the nightstand and Lily Evans-Potter’s deft fingers reach for a seam in her nightgown, presumably where she keeps that wicked dagger. Voldemort pretends not to notice. He holds his hands up, his wand tucked away, and says, “I am here only to make sure your son is alive. Your husband is alive, stuck to the ceiling in the living room.”

“Stop, mommy, stop!” cries Potter when his mother continues to advance. She stops.

Voldemort pinches the bridge of his nose, except he has no nose in this form. Right. He changes the motion mid-air to run his hand through his hair, except he has no hair, either. He ends up awkwardly patting his fingers over his bald head.

“Lily Evans-Potter,” he says, in no mood to deal with her violent tendencies, “please. Here, take my wand—” she fumbles with the wand he tosses at her— “careful with that, it’s one of the Deathly Hallows. Now, take your son and go check on your husband. I can follow you, or I can wait here.”

Lily Evans-Potter is understandably still suspicious, though now that she is holding his wand, she seems more inclined to humor him. She casts a ward around him to keep him in place and to prevent him from using wandless magic, then picks Harry Potter up, edges around Voldemort, and scuttles out of the room.

Voldemort sighs. He hopes that Harry Potter has the presence of mind to put in a good word for him. 

While he waits, it occurs to him that he should gather all of his horcruxes in one place, just in case— so that his insanity will never be dragged on as long as it was last cycle. And— torturing Harry Potter had left a sour aftertaste in his mouth. He’d retched when he last arrived at the train station, because it never should have gone so far. Harry Potter should be happy. He’d been so _young_ and reminiscent of the Potter Baby— Voldemort shudders and pushes it from his mind. That is something he must do as soon as possible.

The sun is rising when the Potter family enters the nursery. James Potter gapes at him, like he hadn’t believed that Voldemort was actually trussed up in his nursery before seeing it with his own eyes. Lily Evans-Potter is all business.

“I believe you,” she says brusquely. “Harry has told us everything.” She dismantles the ward and lets a squirming Harry Potter down. “We…”

Voldemort scoops Harry Potter up from the floor and automatically settles him into the hold they had spent so long together perfecting. Harry Potter curls into his chest. Voldemort almost reels with nostalgia, except Harry Potter is not blubbering all over his robe. After a moment of indulgent comfort, Harry Potter pulls back and flushes.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” Voldemort murmurs, brushing a finger down Harry’s soft cheek. Harry melts under his touch.

They become aware of their audience at the same time. James Potter looks faint and horrified. Lily Evans-Potter also looks faint, but grim.

“If you two are done,” she says tetchily.

“We are,” says Voldemort, refusing to apologize. He and Harry Potter do not move.

She seems to soften at Harry Potter’s dewy, pleading eyes. “Very well, then. We’ll do what we can to get the Order off your back as long as you withdraw your Death Eaters. I— I understand that this is something beyond our control— if you need Harry’s help, we’ll let him go. For the greater good. Just remember that we are willing to help, too. Anything you need.”

James Potter’s voice is wavering but resolved. “Where are you going now?”

“I will arrange a meeting with my Death Eaters,” says Voldemort. “We will gather my horcruxes, so that if I am killed here and lose my memory again, Harry will have an easier time of it.” Harry grasps at his robe at that. “Then, we shall look in the Potter library, if you would refrain from stabbing me.” He quirks a corner of his mouth upwards.

James Potter stares, obviously unsettled. Lily Evans-Potter hurries to say, “Of course. I said, anything you need, and we will stick by that.”

So Voldemort and Harry Potter do that. After dealing with Kreacher the house elf, Harry Potter tells Voldemort to stop referring to him by his full name, “It’s ridiculous.” So by the time they have gathered every horcrux into a box at Grimmauld Place, Harry Potter has become just Harry.

“Call me Tom,” says Voldemort on a whim. Harry beams.

They search the Potter library and find nothing new on time loops, the Hallows, or how the two might be connected.

They search the world and find nearly nothing new on time loops, the Hallows, or how the two might be connected. They periodically reconvene at the Potter residence. Dumbledore is brought into the know. He, too, contributes nothing of import.

Harry is twelve. Their search has been fruitless. Voldemort is tired again. It is nighttime. Harry is asleep, or he should be (the brat).

“I require the use of your liquor cabinet,” Voldemort tells James Potter in the Potter kitchen, and without waiting for permission, he proceeds to slam every bottle of alcohol onto the kitchen table.

“Uh,” says James Potter, alarmed.

“Bottoms up,” says Voldemort. He swipes a bottle at random, uncorks its muggle stopper with a casual application of wandless magic, and starts drinking. He swallows, swallows, swallows, swallows. He sets the bottle heavily onto the table. The liquid in it, the little that is left, sloshes around.

“Uhhh,” says James Potter, inching out of the room.

Wimp. Voldemort wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The other hand clenches the bottle tightly. 

He marvels that his curse is so thorough as to deny him every avenue of hope for change. He wonders how Harry has conquered Death; Harry had gathered all the Hallows, the Cloak, the Stone, the Wand. He wonders how he is connected to this. He wonders at how this form of immortality— long coveted— has become such a _curse_. His thoughts grow disjointed and irrational. He remembers several lives where he’d drunk unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest. He wonders if this is the half-life guaranteed to those who sin. The pain of his split soul throbs under his sternum.

He has no idea how long it’s been when Harry shuffles into the kitchen. The lights are off, so he doesn’t see Voldemort at first. He draws open the window curtains.

“Bloody hell!”

“‘Arry! Wotcher doin' 'ere?” Voldemort says. His enunciation is crisp, if he does say so himself, and he does.

“I couldn’t sleep,” answers Harry. His eyes widen as he takes in the scene before him. Voldemort slumps over the kitchen table. To his left, empty bottles are lined in several neat rows. To his right, unopened ones stand. There are much fewer full bottles than empty ones. “ _Tom_ ,” Harry breathes.

“Nightmares, innit?” Voldemort takes a long swig. “Mm-hmm. Me too. I ‘ate alcohol.”

“You… ate alcohol?” Harry repeats, suppressing his mirth. Voldemort is speaking strangely. Not at all with his usual pureblood enunciation.

“No, no,” Voldemort corrects, “‘ate. ‘Ate. Detest. Dislike right much.”

“ _T_ _om_ ,” exclaims Harry in a sudden revelation, “that’s a _Cockney accent.”_

“Right yer are. ’S where I grew up. I ‘ate alcohol. Bloody M- Missus Cole drank it. Makes yer weak.” Voldemort scowls at the empty bottle and spends a long while squinting and fastidiously lining it up with the rest of them. He turns his squinty eyed expression upon Harry and sighs ruefully. “I miss yor spit.”

Harry is struggling. _Struggling._

Voldemort sighs again, dramatically, and reaches for the next full bottle. He fumbles to uncork it. “We’ve found nuffink. Merlin, right, yer used ter be wee. Droolin' all over me. Cor blimey guv! Too big for that now. Yer were— this.” He flops a hand up, presumably to demonstrate Harry’s baby size. “Wee.”

“I didn’t understand half of that, your accent’s fucking thick,” says Harry. 

“No accent,” says Voldemort, offended. “Trained meself out of it. N- none.”

Harry smothers a laugh and adds, “But it's not true that I’m not small. I used to be even smaller at this age, because of the Dursleys, can you believe it? Everybody’s always teasing me about my height. Especially Draco.”

“I’ll kill 'im for yer if that’s wot yer’d like,” offers Voldemort, and Merlin, he’s serious. “Draco. Or… Dursleys…”

“No!”

“Pity,” says Voldemort. He swallows, swallows, swallows, and slams the bottle onto the table.

“If you hate alcohol, why are you drinking it?” asks Harry.

Voldemort’s eyes cross. He leans a bit too far to the side and falls out of his chair.

But I promise that we’re gonna make it somehow

“Thank me later,” Harry grunts, lugging Voldemort’s limp body up the stairs. “You owe me an apology for saving your heavy ass from passing out in your own drool.”

He yelps and drops the man when he suddenly speaks. Not passed out after all. “I don’t thank, right, and I certainly do not _apologize_ ,” says Voldemort, slurring his words. “Use magic, you fairy.”

“ _F_ _airy_?” He doesn’t hear Voldemort’s mumbled “ _idiot.”_ “I can’t use magic— the Trace.”

“Wandless, stewpid,” says Voldemort.

Harry huffs. “Not everyone is as good as you. Hey, if you’re awake enough to talk, you’re awake enough to walk. Up!”

Voldemort grumbles. “Not gonna. Can’t. Feel… nuffink.”

Voldemort is _inhumanly_ annoying.

“Don’t want to… do it anymore,” Voldemort continues quietly. “Feel nuffink. I’m— right tired.”

Oh. That’s… sad.

Well. Harry made the decision to help Voldemort. So if Voldemort is too tired to keep on hoping, then Harry will hope enough for the both of them.

I’m all in, it’s from the heart again

In the morning, Harry runs cheerfully into Voldemort’s guest bedroom. He sweeps the curtains open. Voldemort groans on the bed. He sincerely regrets everything. The sunlight drills into his sluggish brain and Harry’s bright voice is too much for his sensitive nerves.

“Leave,” Voldemort orders, and pulls his blankets over his head.

“Nope!” The blankets are ripped away. Voldemort blinks blearily up at the ceiling. The shock of the cold has forced his mind awake. “Here,” says Harry, bringing a vial up to his lips. Voldemort takes a cautious sniff before drinking it. It’s hangover potion, thank Merlin.

“You’re too paranoid,” remarks Harry. “C’mon, breakfast! You’ll feel better. And then we can go to King’s Cross!”

“What?” Voldemort pushes himself upright and ignores the spinning of the room to glare at Harry.

“Careful,” says Harry, steadying him. “The potion takes a few minutes to work.”

“ _K_ _ing’s Cross?_ ” Voldemort’s glare intensifies. “We _just_ established a stable cycle and now you want to start over? _Whatever_ for?”

“Whoa, calm down.” Harry placates him with a grin. “Not the in-between, silly, the _real_ King’s Cross. I can’t believe we didn’t think to check it!”

“The in-between King’s Cross is plenty real,” Voldemort says petulantly, and subsides. “Give me a minute to shower and change. I’ll be down in a moment.”

“Sure,” says Harry, beaming for some unfathomable reason. “Be quick!” He flounces out.

Voldemort falls back onto the bed. Harry is way too energetic to be human. Merlin, he regrets drinking _so badly_. Alcohol is atrocious. He will never touch it again.

When he finally makes it to the kitchen, James Potter stares at him. Lily Evans-Potter and Regulus Black purse her lips in identical disapproval. Sirius Black laughs.

Voldemort eats his breakfast with dignity. He ensures that Harry is dressed warmly enough to go out in the chill of autumn, and they apparate.

The train station bustles. Platform nine-and-three-quarters, on the other hand, is empty. 

It is not white or pristine like the in-between. It is a train station, and that’s all there is to it. It does not grow more detailed the more they look; the detail is already there. The tile is brown beneath their feet.

Harry insists on poking around anyway. Voldemort follows him and casts diagnostic charms. They do not find much, until they do.

Mounted upon the wall on the opposite platform is a clock, ticking. It, unlike its counterpart in the in-between, is readable. 

“Let’s get closer,” says Harry, so they do. Voldemort picks Harry up in a secure grip and floats them closer.

Up close, it is just a regular clock. Painted upon its face are fancy Roman numerals and ticks for each minute. It has a minute hand and an hour hand. As they watch, the clock strikes twelve. It does not chime.

“Look,” says Harry. The clock is not so regular after all. Nestled in the curve of its bottom is a faint mark. The mark is also scratched onto the glass protecting the clock's face, right over the painted one. 

The mark is a vertical line bisecting a circle, which is placed inside of a triangle.

The mark of the Deathly Hallows.

“The Deathly Hallows,” Harry echoes, and frees an arm from Voldemort’s hold. He reaches out. 

A tingle causes Voldemort to shiver. A foreboding wells up in him. “Harry, wait,” he says, jerking back.

Too late. Harry’s fingertips brush against the mark. A rush of chill swirls outwards from the point of contact. It is invisible but easily felt. It surrounds them. Harry’s hair stands on end. Voldemort is not supporting them with his magic anymore; they are still floating.

 _Snap_ , whispers a voice of cracking leaves and bitter frost.

Open up your mind and maybe we could start again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you skipped the torture sequence, this is all you need to know:
> 
> “Voldemort makes the double mistake of unshackling Harry, believing him to be weak, and bringing Nagini into the cell. Harry lunges with the tiny blade he’d hidden under his tongue. Nagini dies.”


End file.
